Big security alert as mall heists soar

Robbers are out in force across South Africa as the festive season decorations go up and shopping centres plan extended trading hours.

Yesterday a G4S cash-in-transit security guard was shot dead as he collected money at the entrance of Pick n Pay in Waterstone Village Centre in Somerset West, Western Cape.

On Friday two separate gangs of robbers struck Irene and Centurion malls in Gauteng.

On Thursday night Cardies at Canal Walk Shopping Mall, Cape Town, was also hit.

It's the third store there to be robbed in more than a week. On the same day Bayside Mall's Vodacom outlet, in Blaauwberg, Cape Town, was also robbed.

But despite this, Marna van der Walt, SA Council of Shopping Centres president, said trading hours at malls would be extended. "We will have to improve security during the longer hours and during the festive season," he said.

"The [duration of the] time that the mall is open [for] doesn't affect robberies ... robberies are highly planned and well-executed," Van der Walt said.

Michael Petersen, CEO of insurance company Risk Benefit Solutions, said mall robberies had recently come under the spotlight through the media.

The company specialises in commercial business insurance. He said there has been a dramatic increase in robberies - almost every second day in the last two weeks across the country.

He said syndicates often pay staff for information. "They will pretend to shop. Often they follow an employee home and then threaten the employee's life," Petersen said.

This, he said, made it easy for criminals to gather information from employees, including when cash-ups took place.